All thunder and manic fervor, the scrawny, filthy man fell upon Cornet Laurent, the terrified boy. In the trench, hastily half-dug and now equally a river of muddy blood, the filthy man pressed his weight upon the broken spear, attempting to end Laurent with the jagged and splintered wooden end. Screaming and crying, the cornet with hands so already slickened, tried to press back against his enemy. And just as suddenly as this scene began, a shell blasted just above the two, and the scrawny filthy man from Colchis was now as much shredded ribbon as he had been a soldier.     But, truly, he was no soldier; no more than Cornet Laurent was. What had he been? A farmer? A serf? A brother? Lover? A teller of tales or jokes? Now only shot and roaring silence could be the answer; he was dead. And the "cornet"? A boy of 16, who, tragically, was literate and had been in school. Enough for King Alphonse IV to have him commissioned, as a cavalry officer no less. In the following se